Own project – Social Networking

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Luke Hutton

iglu: Analysing dynamics of the social graph to filter social networking interactions

Social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter have achieved significant popularity, as people share a wide range of content – such as status updates, photos and video, with an increasing range of people – whether best friends, work colleagues, or acquaintances. While we effortlessly manage who we share things with in real life, the issue of managing privacy online is made more difficult by complex privacy settings interfaces, and uncertainty about who might see a piece of communication.
This study aimed to demonstrate that there is a significant disparity between users’ understanding of their own privacy settings on social networking services and their actual privacy configuration. A prototypical social networking service was developed which didn’t require users to make abstract privacy decisions, instead dynamically filtering content based on the complex intersections between a user’s interests and what they want other people to be able to see. The system dynamically identified communities of peers, known as social circles, to automatically control the dissemination of content based on the relationships between groups.
The study found that many people exaggerate their use of privacy settings, a result of which is their personal data is often available for public consumption. The system demonstrated that the user experience with social networking services is improved through automated profiling of interests in order to serve more relevant content from peers, and to better control the sharing of content with those who should be able to see it.